Things I learned driving a supercar for the first time

The gentleman patiently walking me through the controls of the McLaren 650S Spider stopped mid-sentence and eyed me, as if he’d picked up on a tell in my body language. “Have you driven a supercar before?”

My mind raced; I hadn’t. Seen supercars? Sure, I’d even had the pleasure of sitting in a few. But for perfectly good reasons — cost, liability, rarity, inexperience, my comprehensive lack of wealth or social status — no one had entrusted me with the keys before. “I, uh, I’ve driven a number of clutchless manuals,” was about as far as I could get without lying to the guy who was about to grant me custody of a hand-built $320,000 vehicle for five days and four nights. I then mentioned that I’d once owned a BMW M3, as if that somehow…